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My Top Five Tesla Motors Moments in 2014

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Each year, Tesla seems to top the previous year with developments and breaking news, and 2014 was no different. Here’s my list of top Tesla Motors moments in 2014:

Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk discussing the footprint of the Gigafactory and its energy needs.

Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk discussing the footprint of the Gigafactory and its energy needs.

5 – Did you say a $5 Billion Gigafactory? In late March, Tesla announced that four states were in the running for the $5 billion Gigafactory that would produce up to 50-GW-h of battery packs per year and 35-GW-h of energy storage packs per year by 2020. Fast forward to later this year and JB Straubel, CTO, Tesla Motors, said “We’re a bit ahead of schedule in the Gigafactory than what we previously communicated. We felt it was important to go as fast as we possibly could and start some production operations in 2016.”

4 – So who won? I can’t leave you hanging, right? The winner of the Gigafactory sweepstakes was Reno, Nevada and it was announced in September 2014. The entire Nevada legislature voted to approve the land and tax incentives received by Tesla Motors. Of course, old media gnats took a swipe at the incentives that Tesla Motors received, based on the fact the company is only ten years old and not a bloated 20th century company, such as Boeing and Volkswagen.

Just this last year, VW received $230 million dollars from the state of Tennessee for plant expansion that creates 2,000 jobs, compared to the 5,000 jobs at the Gigafactory. Musk is big target. This is a great, “Inside Elon Musk’s 1.4 Gigafactory Score,” and it details the competition among states and Tesla Motor’s dealmaking approach.

3- Rising Tides Lifts All Boats, right? So how do you accelerate auto electrification in the industry? Just release your patents. That’s what Tesla Motors did on June 12, 2014 via the blog post, “All Our Patent Are Belong to You,” and it created a big Internet, social media and media buzz for weeks. During the summer, there was conjecture that BMW was talking with Elon Musk, but nothing came out of it.

So why did they do it? From Musk’s blog post: “At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.”

2- Against It! It can’t be a completely groovy list, right? Back in March, the state of New Jersey blocked Tesla Motors from selling its cars via a non-elected Commissioner board that announced its ruling on Monday morning (public debate ran from 10:37 – 11:15) and voted to approve the ban later that day… Democracy and free markets, not in New Jersey…Michigan…Missouri, Texas, but I digress. The greed freaks (the state dealer association) and their political minions in New Jersey made sure no Tesla Motors retail stores could exist. The “honorable” Governor Christie said there were no talks between the company and his office, and Christie felt it was an issue that the legislature could rectify.

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1- All Things D The winner for 2014 is the “All Things D” event and announcement of the Model S P85D (all-wheel drive) that provides the Silicon Valley automaker a new market segment to reach in the coming years and compete with the BMW i8’s price range or higher-end Jaguars and BMW sedans and coupes. Musk tweeted and the Internet followed all the way to southern California, where many witnessed numerous 3.2 second 0 to 60 nighttime demonstrations and driver assist features. Just reported today, these new electric beasts are out on the road in southern California.
Runner ups: The Model X delays vehicle deliveries until 3rd quarter 2015 and on April 24, 2014 the company announced its 100th supercharger. Also, the cross country Tesla Motors trip was a fun 72 hours or so.

Trying out the new superchargers located at Two Brothers Brewery, located in Aurora, IL, the 2nd largest city in Illinois.

Trying out the new superchargers located at Two Brothers Brewery, located in Aurora, IL, the 2nd largest city in Illinois.

**A favorite moment for this Model S driver was the installation of superchargers (photo right) at my favorite craft brewer the Chicago area, Two Brothers Brewery in Aurora.

So what will be the big Tesla Motors moment in 2015? A Model X surprise? Maybe Tesla sells more all-electric vehicles than Nissan’s Leaf? We will see.

"Grant Gerke wears his Model S on his sleeve and has been writing about Tesla for the last five years on numerous media sites. He has a bias towards plug-in vehicles and also writes about manufacturing software for Automation World magazine in Chicago. Find him at Teslarati

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Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service

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Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.

Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.

Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.

Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.

This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?

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If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.

What do you think? Leave me a comment.

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Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade

Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.

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Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)
Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.

The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”

The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.

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It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.

The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.

For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking

Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.

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Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley
Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley

Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.

Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.

This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.

Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.

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Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.

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